Hypothesis Design, Coursework Example

Quantitative Methodology

In the realm of educational assessment, quantitative methodology predominantly relies on assessment via student testing.  Using the topic of vocabulary instruction as a means to increase speaking and reading skills, it will be tested among a group of students to test what type of vocabulary instruction is the most effective in facilitating reading comprehension among middle school students.

In this experiment, there will be three different arms of vocabulary learning.  The first arm will consist of a group of 50 students that will learn 40 new words a day for two weeks.  The second group will consist of a group of 50 students that will be presented with progressively harder reading passages that will feature questions suggesting the context of how words are used, but will not explicitly provide definitions. The third group of 50 students (the placebo group) will simply have the same reading class that focuses on planned passages.

The students will be tested once (the pre-test) to approximate their reading comprehension scores.  They will then be tested one month later to assess the students improvement in vocabulary and the ability to match words with their correct meaning and respond to multiple choice questions for a reading comprehension passage.  The main metric emerging from this study is the comparison among groups- that is, which teaching method had the greatest impact on improving student vocabulary apprehension.

Qualitative Methodology

While quantitative methodology focuses on analyzing test performance, qualitative methodology focuses on assessing progress based on less quantifiable metrics.  Indeed, in order to test vocabulary acquisition among students in a qualitative manner, the students will still be broken up in different groups to assess different techniques; however, rather than testing students based on a final performance, this test will focus on assessing written essays and interviews with the students to gauge learning progress.

For this test, the students will be initially broken up into three arms: 1) one group will focus on vocabulary acquisition alone; without spending a significant amount of time on reading; 2) one group will focus on reading difficult passages and understanding the context of words, without having explicit instruction regarding vocabulary terms; 3) one group will go through the same curriculum as they have for the previous six months.  Instead of having the children go through a uniform test, however, the students will be asked to write an essay after two months of instruction and have an interview with the teacher based on vocabulary and reading passages in the book.

The students will then be assessed on a pre-post test basis, based on the strength of their essay and the interview with the teacher.  In particular, the essays will be searched for use of words contained in previous lessons, and the interview will be transcribed to assess the student’s progress over a period of time.

Mixed Methodology

The mixed methodology method of testing vocabulary acquisition among students for enhanced reading comprehension will combine the quantitative and qualitative methodologies enumerated above.

The two-part assessment will have an equal assessment: 1) The quantitative assessment will compose 50% of the final score; 2) The qualitative assessment will also compose 50% of the final score.  There are two predominant strengths to the mixed methodology assessment.  First, some students who perform worse on tests may perform better on the essay and interview; this will allow a fuller picture of which instruction methods produce which results.  Second, the mixed methodology allows for more flexibility in the statistical analysis.  While the quantitative analysis is primarily used to assess differences in vocabulary acquisition among groups, the qualitative analysis primarily used to assess differences in the single learner.

Overall, this paper presents three different research designs measuring vocabulary acquisition: 1) quantitative; 2) qualitative; 3) mixed methods design.

Conclusion

Imagine a little girl having her hair braided by her mother.  The process of braiding involves dividing the hair into three strands. One strand of hair is then pulled across the middle strand of hair and this process is done alternatively until all three strands form a single, braided strand of hair. Mixed methodologies are much the same process. Instead of separate methods of experimental validity, the various strands of the experiment are interwoven into a single method. According to Angell and Townsend (2011), the quantifiable method represents numerical data while the qualitative strand represents textual or pictorial data. Individually, either method is an acceptable method of analysis. However, together they add to each other’s strength, thus creating a research design that is comparably stronger together than either method would be separately.

According to Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner (2007), “Mixed methods research is the type of research in which a researcher or team of researchers combines elements of qualitative and quantitative approaches (e.g., use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techniques) for the purpose of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration” (p. 126). The study examined in this document was analyzed using two single methods: quantitative and qualitative methodologies. By itself, either method formed a solid analysis.  However, research suggests that mixed methods create an analytical fabric that provides the strongest bond (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner).

References:

Angell, B. & Townsend, L. (2011). Workshop for the 2011 Society for Social Work and Research annual meeting.  Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research. New Jersey: Rutgers University.

Cresswell, J. (2003).  Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Method Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press.

Fink, A. (2008). How to Conduct Surveys: A Step-by-Step Guide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press.

Johnson, B. & Christensen.  (2010). Educational Research: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Approaches.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press.

Johnson, R., Onweugbuzie, J. & Turner, L. (2007). Toward a definition of mixed  research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 1(2): 112-133.

Kin, R. (2008). Case Study Design: Research and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Press.

Krathwohl, D. (2009). Methods of Educational and Social Science Research: The Logic of Methods. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland.